News Analysis: Seven reasons why U.S. men’s soccer keeps crashing out of the World Cup

By Kevin Baxter
Staff Writer
July 12, 20264 AM PT

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• Hosting the World Cup with a seasoned, Europe-tested roster and star coach Mauricio Pochettino, the U.S. still crashed out in the round of 16 — again.
• The exit exposes deeper flaws: a pay-to-play youth pipeline sidelining public schools, uneven grassroots coaching, no clear national style and a schedule padded with weaker regional opponents.
• Lacking a true game-changing star, this so-called Golden Generation of U.S. men’s soccer wilted against Belgium.

1

Before this summer’s World Cup, FIFA asked the 48 participating teams to provide a list of songs to be played during warmups and goal celebrations and, if appropriate, after victories. On the U.S. list was John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” which quickly became the anthem of the team’s run through the tournament

A more appropriate choice would have been the Buzzcocks’ “Sixteen Again,” because once again that’s where the Americans’ World Cup ended

In the round of 16. Again

This was supposed to be the year the U.S. broke through. With a roster full of players from major European teams and 13 who were World Cup veterans, a lack of quality and experience no longer were valid excuses

With the U.S. co-hosting the tournament, the team would play before huge, supportive crowds. And it had Mauricio Pochettino, one of Europe’s most successful club managers, running the show

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“Playing at home is just a huge advantage,” said Bruce Arena, the only man to coach the U.S. in two World Cups. “They’re seeded, so they’re in a favorable bracket. They have everything going for them.”

Yet they went out in the round of 16. Again

“It feels exactly the same,” said midfielder Tyler Adams, who has played in the last two World Cups. “Definitely sucks.”

Yes, the U.S. won a knockout-round game for just the second time. But with the expanded field, it was a round-of-32 game against a Bosnia-Herzegovina team that finished third in its group and likely would not have qualified for the tournament under the old format

The U.S. also won three games overall, its most wins in a World Cup, and scored a team-record 11 goals. But two of those three victories and seven of those goals came against teams that likely wouldn’t have made the tournament in the past

So despite some new highs, nothing really changed: The U.S. got no further than the final 16. Again

And that should force U.S. Soccer into a major, systemic evaluation of what went wrong and how it can be fixed

2

Youth development and the pay-for-play system

A young U.S. fan holds a miniature replica of the World Cup.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

This is, by far, the main structural impediment to success. More than 14 million people are registered to play soccer in the U.S., the majority under the age of 18. That’s the largest participation base in the world and more than seven times the number of registered players in France

Yet France produced nearly 100 World Cup players who played for 13 countries this summer, and its team reached the semifinals for a third straight tournament

The reason lies in the U.S. system, much of which is run as a business, requiring families to pay as much as $20,000 a year for travel, fees, coaching and training. In France, youth sports are heavily subsidized by local municipalities and community groups, substantially lowering the barrier for entry. As a result, most of the country’s top players come from the banlieues, the working-class immigrant suburbs surrounding Paris

The U.S. has a government-subsidized soccer ecosystem — it’s called high school. But elite club soccer and the Major League Soccer academies have conspired to kill it by prohibiting their players from participating in high school or middle school programs. That’s why Pico Rivera’s Cristian Roldan was the only player on this U.S. World Cup team who played four years of soccer at a public high school. That’s a massive missed opportunity since the U.S. is the only country that has a free, large-scale sports program integrated into its education system.

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Providing a pathway that opens the sport to children of all economic backgrounds and provides quality coaching and competition that is accessible and close by — say, like a high school program — is vital if soccer is to attract and develop the nation’s top talents

The quality of coaching at the grassroots level also must be improved if the U.S. hopes to compete with the rest of the world. In France, grassroots coaching is licensed and standardized by the country’s soccer federation. In far too many places in the U.S., coaching is done by volunteers or parents

It also would be helpful to introduce futsal, a much faster, smaller-team version of soccer, at a young age to improve ballhandling, decision-making and technical proficiency under pressure

3

Establishing a tactical identity

Under Pochettino, the U.S. approach was defined by an aggressive pressing system and tactical fluidity, with the team building from a back-three structure that freed its wing backs to exploit overloads when pushing forward. In the previous World Cup cycle, former coach Gregg Berhalter played a possession-based game out of a 4-3-3 base formation with a double pivot. Under Arena, the U.S. played a more defensive scheme and relied on quick transitions into the attack

All teams are defined, to some measure, on the preferences and prejudices of their managers. But many countries are successful because they have a clear identity, a set of tactics that are built from youth national teams to the senior team, and often are mirrored by coaches in their domestic league. As a result, players are practiced in those tactics from youth, and teams are chosen by which players best fit that style

Developing a cohesive, distinct American style rather than relying solely on individual talent would give the national team a structure it has lacked

4

Competition from other sports

Soccer is the No. 1 sport in most countries, so the top athletes naturally gravitate to it. That’s not so in the U.S., where many kids are drawn to American football, basketball or baseball. If Erling Haaland, Kylian Mbappé or Romelu Lukaku had grown up in the U.S., they almost certainly would be playing in the NFL or NBA. That’s a cultural obstacle that will be difficult to clear

And while MLS has made great strides in improving salaries — the median guaranteed pay is $352,104 this season, more than double the rate a decade ago — it pales in comparison to the NFL ($860,000), NBA ($7.3 million) and MLB ($1.4 million)

Even going to play in Europe won’t make most players wealthier than an NBA player, a hurdle the U.S. simply will have to accept

5

Lack of vision and confidence

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The U.S. team’s history of underachievement has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When Pochettino, who played in a World Cup for Argentina, took over the U.S. team in the fall of 2024, he said he inherited a demoralized, dispirited group

“We were so naive,” he said

The players had to believe they could win before they actually could do it, so Pochettino and his staff constantly pointed to the examples of South Korea and Morocco, countries that jumped from the World Cup group stage to the tournament quarterfinals in one four-year cycle

“Why not us?” Pochettino emphasized

That conviction isn’t there yet, but Pochettino’s positive approach likely will be more successful in developing that than the one Jurgen Klinsmann tried before leading the U.S. into the 2014 tournament

“We cannot win this World Cup, because we are not at that level yet,” he said before the first game in Brazil

They didn’t and they weren’t, going out in the round of 16

6

A stronger schedule

The U.S. is handicapped by being a member of CONCACAF, the confederation of the Americas and the Caribbean, where the Gold Cup and Nations League tournaments force the Americans to play regular games against vastly inferior teams. In Pochettino’s first year in charge, for example, the U.S. played Panama twice, Jamaica twice, Trinidad and Tobago, Saudi Arabia, Haiti, Guatemala and Venezuela, losing just once. None of those teams ranked among the top 30 in the world

Yes, the U.S. also played Mexico twice, Switzerland, Japan, Turkey, Canada and Ecuador — all teams in the top 30 — winning just once. To measure itself, build confidence and improve, the team needs more games with Switzerland and Mexico and fewer with Haiti and Guatemala

7

Lack of a game-changing player

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

More Americans are playing for bigger clubs and having more success in Europe than ever before, but that pipeline has yet to produce a true superstar. Many of the teams that have had success in this tournament have at least one player — Mbappé, Haaland, Lionel Messi, Harry Kane — who can change the game on their own

The U.S. doesn’t have anyone who would be sure to start on any of the World Cup semifinalists and until it does, closing the gap will be difficult

“We are USA and [we’re] competing against Belgium, Portugal,” Pochettino said last March. “I think for sure Belgium and Portugal have [players] in the top 100. We don’t.”

He is right. When the Guardian published its annual list of the world’s top players last winter, Christian Pulisic, the top American, didn’t make the top 100. And he didn’t play a full game in this tournament, missing one to injury, leaving three early and entering another as a late second-half substitute. He played just 223 minutes — 19 more than Ricardo Pepi — and finished with one assist

Landon Donovan was arguably the closest thing to a game-changing player the U.S. had, so it’s no surprise he scored key goals in the team’s most important World Cup games in the last 32 years: one against Algeria in stoppage time in 2010 that allowed the Americans to finish atop their group for the first time since 1930, and another against Mexico in the round of 16 in 2002, sending the team to the quarterfinals for the only time

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If those are structural things that have long held U.S. Soccer back, there also were issues specific to this team, a supposed Golden Generation whose core was formed in the wake of the failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup

The talent was undeniable, which led to great expectations. But what has this generation accomplished? Two round-of-16 exits in the World Cup, one Gold Cup title in the last four tournaments — the team’s worst stretch this century — a fourth-place finish in the last Nations League and a group-stage departure in the last Copa América

Impressive wins over Paraguay and Australia to start the World Cup gave the Golden Generation a bit of a shine and suggested progress. But when the Americans met a top-10 team in Belgium, the matchup proved a mismatch

“We want to have higher hopes,” Pulisic said. “We want to be able to go and compete with some of the best in the world. We just still have that next step to climb.”

Against Belgium, that step looked as steep as Mt. Everest

8

Nerves

Every player questioned after the loss to Belgium said they felt no different going into the game than they did before any other. But they sure didn’t play like that, starting poorly, then quickly getting worse. Trying to solve Belgium was more difficult than solving Paraguay and the high-pressure, must-win situation of an elimination game against the No. 8 team in the world — and it clearly unsettled the U.S

Balogate, the unnecessary own goal President Trump scored against the team, didn’t help. The day before the Belgium match, FIFA announced it would allow Folarin Balogun to play in the round of 16 despite the striker drawing a red card in the previous game. It was just the second time in World Cup history FIFA made such a call, and when the president bragged to reporters that he had called FIFA chief Gianni Infantino and asked for Balogun’s one-game suspension to be lifted, the good vibes surrounding the U.S. team suddenly vanished and Belgium was given an issue to rally around.

Did it make a difference? Again, the players said no, but the U.S. played its worst game of the tournament and Balogun, who had three goals in his first three games, was a non-factor. Afterward, Belgium celebrated in its dressing room by performing a version of Trump’s signature dance and singing “YMCA” before packing for the quarterfinals

The U.S. players, meanwhile, shuffled off toward home with a different tune ringing in their ears

“This future is our future, this time’s not a game,” the Buzzcocks sang. “This time you’re 16 again.”